I'm a semi-retired primary school teacher. Retiring gives me time for photography, while occasional supply work pays for it!

Got my first camera when I was 12, in 1960. A Ferrania Eura. It could be focused, had 2 stops (f8 and f11) and it could have a flash gun. A real camera! Took as many photos as I could afford on my pocket money, including a roll of colour film in 1963 - an expensive novelty then!

Second camera was a Balda Baldinette 35mm (second hand from Dixons in 1965 - £6). f2.8, 3shutter speeds, but best of all, lever film wind-on - cool! Processed my own black and white, while using some colour slides over the next few years before graduating to a Zorki 4K. It looked like a Leica, for 10th of the price, but still took cracking photos. Gradually, photography became less of a hobby, more of a way of recording family events.

Tried a Casio digicam in the late 90's, but I wasn't impressed. Its high res mode of 640x480 couldn't compete with film, especially as the camera was over £600!

Got a Fuji Finepix 2400 about 5 years ago. 2mp was a big improvement, and I began to feel inspired to take up photography seriously again.

Have now graduated to a Panasonic FZ50, which looks as though it will meet all my needs for the present.

Now I must stop talking about it, and start doing it!

Update February 2017:

Is it 10 years since I got my FZ50? It's still a lovely camera which I've used so much it's now showing signs of wear. Bits of grip have fallen off and the mode selector is a tad temperamental.

After 3 or 4 years of waiting for Panasonic to introduce the FZ60 I realised that was never going to happen. Several FZ models did appear, but none, to my mind, matched the FZ50, so I stuck with it. Then the FZ1000 appeared, and that really seemed to fit my needs. I left it so long before going for it though I thought I'd wait to see what the FZ2000 had to offer if and when it came along. Come along it did, but the almost doubling in price put me off, especially as one pro review rated IQ of the FZ1000 superior.

So that's what I have now.

I'm not parting with my FZ50 though!

Update June 2018

I felt I was getting a bit stale with my photography, so earlier this year I joined my local Rotherham U3A Photographic Group. (U3A stands for University of the Third Age. It's not really a university - there are no exams or a degree at the end - but it's a way for us oldies to keep our brains active.)

I've just realised my Flickr Photostream is getting a bit stale too, so I intend to add photos taken for my U3A projects.